Obama to Limit Pay for Wall Street, NFL, NBA, MLB

[Roscoe]

Obama to Limit Pay for Wall Street, NFL, NBA, MLB

Posted By Scott Ott On March 22, 2009 @ 6:02 am In Business, U.S. News |

(2009-03-22) — With the debate over AIG executive bonuses nearly bringing official Washington to a standstill in the past three weeks, the Obama administration today expanded its plan to control Wall Street executive pay, adding provisions to limit compensation for star performers in the National Football League (NFL), National Basketball Association (NBA) and Major League Baseball (MLB).

“Some of these sports stars, like AIG execs, have negotiated sweetheart deals paying them millions of dollars, and yet they lose games,” said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs. “The president shares the outrage of the American people at these obscene salaries and bonuses. There’s nothing that makes the little people feel littler than the thought of these fat cats getting fatter just because that have specialized skills that are in high demand in a free-market economy.”

Indeed, the White House released a recent poll showing that 75 percent of Americans answered ‘Yes’ to the following question: “Do you believe President Obama should personally limit the compensation of anyone who earns a lot more than you do?”

“How hard can it be to show up on Sunday and toss a few passes?” said Mr. Gibbs. “The fact that some people earn a lot more money than others just demonstrates the savage inequalities inherent in a capitalist system, and explains why the president has taken deliberate action to end it.”

Under the terms of the pay-limit plan, the president would appoint a panel of university economists, union leaders, and “ordinary American community organizers” to establish paycheck parity between average hourly-wage workers and the people “who have carved out for themselves an unequal portion of the pie.”

“In America you can dream as big as you want, but everyone agrees we need strict controls on those whose dreams have come true,” Mr. Gibbs said. “The people deserve a system in which there are no limits to your potential, only to your achievements.”

The proposal would exempt most Hollywood stars and popular recording artists, he said, “since much of their money is already returned to the people in the form of contributions to the Democrat party and its candidates.”

[Balance_Point]

This must be a joke. This is one step away from communism. Even Nobama can't be this stupid. Will this also be reflected in his wage as well as his associates in congress? I think not.

[Roscoe]

Scott Ott is the giveaway.........

Roscoe

[Balance_Point]

Helps if I pay attn.

[sllib]

Good ole Scrappleface.com.
Bill Stradtner

[Dan40]

How did Tiger get an exemption?

Dan

[Fred Douglass]

...ar-ar-ar-ar-ar-ar-ar-ar-ar-ar-ar-ar! Beyooooodie!

[Wayne Maybury]

There is a big story here in the morning paper talking about hard times coming for pro sports. George Gillette has hired financial advisors to look into his empire (Montreal Canadiens in the NHL, Liverpool in European Soccer, his NASCAR team, ski hill operations in CO, etc, etc) He has a personal loan of $75 million at 19% and has another $300 million loan coming up for renegotiation (I'm sorry but I can't remember the details on that). Anyway here is a high flier that has been roaming the globe in his private jet but it now appears that he is up to his ying-yang in debt that he can no longer afford. He is probably not the only pro sports team owner in this situation but he is one of the first to go public with his financial problems.

The story went on to talk about the difficulties that the NFL, NBA, NASCAR, MLB, etc are all facing as the car companies and the financial institutions as well as businesses in general, are pulling back sponsorship dollars. In addition, much of the revenue generated in pro sports today is based on TV deals and luxury suites / private boxes. I would think that many companies are going to have a very difficult time justifying the support they have been giving to pro sports.

Wayne